Terry: Scolari firing a shock

2009-02-10 20:12

Seville - Chelsea captain John Terry was "shocked" by the club's decision to fire manager Luiz Felipe Scolari, saying Tuesday the players were as much to blame as the Brazilian coach for the club's recent slide.

Scolari was dismissed Monday after six months in charge at Chelsea, which has slipped to fourth place in the Premier League, seven points behind leader Manchester United.

"He had my full support, that's for sure," Terry said. "I'm sure there are two or three other players who would say exactly the same thing, but he's a great man and unfortunately because we weren't playing well it falls on his head.

"Maybe it shouldn't. Maybe it should have been some of us, I think, because we did underachieve."

Chelsea has approached Russia coach Guus Hiddink about taking over until the end of the season.

Terry said that Chelsea's confidence has been the biggest obstacle and that perhaps Hiddink could be the coach to reverse the Blues fortunes.

"With his style of play, he likes to play football," Terry said. "I don't know too much about him but we'll have to wait and see."

Terry said he was relieved to be in Seville with England preparing for Wednesday's friendly against Spain.

"It's sort of a relief of what's happening back home, I think, and things are going well (here), it's good that I'll go back to Chelsea with this winning mentality that we've had and we need to get there very quickly," said Terry, who was critical of his own recent performances.

"I think at the start of the season I was playing well, at least for the first 5-10 games, but I could have been better," he said. "I think the middle part of the season coincided with Chelsea's bad run of form and I could have been better and I put my hand up to that."

"We spoke but I'm sure that John Terry will be OK," the Italian coach said. "The national team shirt is very important for him, being skipper is important, it's tradition."

AP

Comments

lobo - 2009-02-11 07:48

I don't know what chelsea hope to achieve by firing scolari. surely they could have given him a bit more time. they're only going to unsettle the team even more by changing the coach in the middle of the season. can't see huddink or anyone else, besides maybe murinho, making a difference to that side, they were always just pretenders anyway, this was inevitable.

ryan - 2009-02-11 11:04

have to agree with lobo .Chelsea are just pretenders - the crown belongs to one team only MANCHESTER UNITED which by the way , I think is where ''the special one '' will be heading when Sir Alex retires . Think about it , they are the only two coaches in the world with bigger egos than the superstars that play for them and they both do not tolerate crap from players or the owners of the club .Mourinho would do well at United given that at United the manager has full control over buying and selling of players which is what Mourinho wanted at Chelsea .